Polycarbonate compositions are widely used as engineering thermoplastics in a wide variety of applications due to their good heat resistance, impact resistance, and transparency. However, in applications where the polycarbonate comes into direct contact with chemicals, in particular cleaning chemicals, such as in offices or kitchen appliances, the polycarbonate compositions can be subject to environmental stress cracking (ESC). Attempts to improve the chemical resistance of the compositions have included the incorporation of thermoplastic polyesters or other polymers into the compositions. However, chemical resistance of even these compositions does not meet more stringent requirements. It can further be difficult to obtain excellent chemical resistance while maintaining a good balance of processing and mechanical properties, for example flow and impact properties.
There accordingly remains a need in the art for polycarbonate compositions that have good processing and mechanical properties and good chemical resistance.